I recently put together a demonstration of this tool, using a YouTube video from the popular TED Talks series.

One of the frustrations I’ve always had with TED Talks is that, because the producers of the TED conferences like to use as many as five cameras to record their speakers, the director likes to use every one of them! Yet these speakers almost always bring illustrations and diagrams that are fascinating and invite careful study. But as soon as you start studying the image…it’s gone, as the director cuts to another fancy camera angle?

Enter the online presentation — a way to give the VIEWER more control over the experience. Like the live presentation experience, the online presentation gives control back to the viewer, who can choose whether to watch the presenter or study the images at his or her own pace.

Add to that the ability to add footnotes and reference links, as well as chapter marks reflecting the structure of the talk, and you have a very different experience than the original.